


The Mystery of the Vanishing Portrait

by Nefertiti_22002



Series: Jonathan Strange ♥ Mr Norrell sequels [4]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 04:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10180985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nefertiti_22002/pseuds/Nefertiti_22002
Summary: In the Darkness, Jonathan Strange is working toward his and Mr Norrell's goal of traveling about the world in Hurtfew Abbey via the Darkness. As he does so, he comes across the joint portrait that Sir Thomas Lawrence had painted of the two in November of 1814. Mr Norrell explains how it came to be there.Written in response to a prompt on the kinkmeme, asking for a fic about where the painting, which is said in a footnote to have been removed from Hannover-square in 1815 and "has not been seen since" ended up and why it was removed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic fits into the universe of my "Jonathan Strange ♥ Mr Norrell." It is not a sequel, as the other fics after the first series, of that title, are. This one takes place during a temporal gap in Chapter 7 of the original series, between the opening section "The seventeenth day after the Disenchantment" and the second section, "The eighteenth day after the Disenchantment." It can be read on its own, however, despite containing some references to earlier events in the chapter, especially if the reader is familiar with Clarke's novel. The action takes place during the time frame of its final chapter. (Many of the other chapters in this series are explicit, but this one is pure fluff.)

“This portrait, now lost, hung in Mr Norrell’s library from November 1814 until the summer of the following year when it was removed. It has not been seen since.” _Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,_ Chapter 35

March 4, 1817 (The seventeenth day after the Disenchantment) 

After lunch, Mr Strange decided to embark upon a project to inventory all the basic household items that he could find in the disused rooms of Hurtfew Abbey. He and Mr Norrell hoped to make their first small test of trying to move the Abbey via the Darkness as soon as they could finish the elaborate spell to do so. They had no idea how long that would take—a few days, perhaps a week, and he wanted to find out what sorts of things they might need to purchase before departing from Yorkshire on their travels. 

It was a tedious task, and yet he set out upon it cheerfully. That morning the two had received their first visits from tradesmen, a tailor, shoemaker and barber who had been assured concerning the safety of entering the Darkenss. Given his period of madness in Venice, his hair had grown long and shaggy. Now, with it clean and shorter, he felt far more comfortable, and he was also wearing new clothes and shoes. 

Mr Strange began in the guest bedrooms, few of which had been used since the death of Mr Norrell’s uncle, three decades earlier. Mr Norrell had told him that the maids cleaned and aired the rooms once a year, but otherwise they were untouched. Mr Strange found that some of the beds were made up as if for company, while others had no sheets, covers or pillows. He made a careful count of all the bedclothes in the rooms and in the large linen closet that he had discovered back in the days before he and Mr Norrell were able to hire back some of the servants. He also noted a few lamps, basins and other necessary items that were still present in a few of the rooms. 

Eventually Mr Strange reached the last door along the corridor, opening it and holding up his bright lamp to assess the room. At once he started, for facing him across the room was what appeared to be himself and Mr Norrell. Quickly, however, he realized that it was the double portrait of the pair which had caused its artist, Sir Thomas Lawrence, such troubles and which had hung in the library at Hannover-square. Indeed, it had looked down upon him and Mr Norrell’s conversation almost exactly two years earlier, when he had told his master that he would no longer be his pupil. He had never visited Hannover-square again and had largely forgotten about the portrait. Certainly Mr Norrell had every right to keep it, since he had paid to have it done. It currently stood upon the floor, leaning back against the wall in a casual fashion. 

Coincidentally Mr Norrell had reminded him of the portrait that very morning. Mr Strange remembered his words with a fond smile: “Mr Strange, you look just as you did when we had our joint portrait painted!” and “You are still as handsome and dashing as ever.” In fact, he was struck by how much he had changed since the portrait was painted in November of 1814. His sojourn in Venice had left him haggard and with more grey hair than before. He was startled to see how young he had looked then. Even now, with his new clothes and haircut, he was not back to his old appearance. But Mr Norrell saw him through the eyes of love, he reflected, his smile broadening. Mr Norrell looked the same in the portrait as he did in the present. “Or am I also looking at it through the eyes of love?” he wondered. 

The bedroom was relatively small, and its bed had not been made up. Nevertheless, a comfortable-looking armchair and a small side table sat facing the portrait, and the room had several lamps placed on the mantelpiece and bedside tables. It occurred to him that Mr Norrell might have visited the room to gaze at it in the days before the Darkness arrived at Hurtfew. Perhaps even when still at Hannover-square he had looked at it in his loneliness after their parting. His smile faded. 

His stomach told him that it was approaching the hour when he and Mr Norrell habitually had tea, and he returned to the library. He found the other magician walking toward the door and saw that a full tray had been placed on the low table near the fireplace. 

“Oh, I was just coming to find you!” Mr Norrell said with a delighted smile. Mr Strange thought, as he so often did, of how marvelously that smile transformed the man’s face from its accustomed plainness and made him adorable and, yes, cute. 

They sat down together on the sopha and poured out their tea. Mr Strange helped himself to some small sandwiches and Mr Norrell to some sweet biscuits. 

Once they were comfortably settled into their meal, Mr Strange said, “Earlier today you spoke of the portrait of the two of us. I was rather startled when I walked into one of the bedrooms and found it there. I suppose after our falling-out two years ago you decided you would rather not have it in your London library to remind you of your errant pupil.” 

Mr Norrell looked sadly into the fire. “No, not immediately. Of course, I was in love with you and felt devastated when you parted with me. In some ways the portrait was a reminder of that last meeting, and I considered having it taken down right away and sent here to Hurtfew. Still, I could not bear to be without it. It was all of you that I had left! And I must admit, I still had some hope that some day we might be reconciled and recommence working together as I had offered—as equal partners. I told myself that I was just being foolish, but in fact it has happened!” He again smiled at Mr Strange. “So I wasn’t being so foolish after all. I used to sit in my library of an evening and stare at it. That made me all the more miserable, but I simply could not stop myself from doing so.” 

Mr Strange had tears standing in his eyes by this point. “Oh, Gilbert, I made you so miserable, and myself as well, leaving you as I did. But how did the portrait get here? Did you manage to bring it with you when you returned to Hurtfew last month?” 

Mr Norrell hesitated. “No. It was in June, a few months after our parting. Mr Lascelles told me that you were writing a book on English magic. I was terribly angry. I saw it as an attack on me and my way of doing magic. Of course, I have always planned to write a book of my own, but I have never managed to do it. It always seems that there is more to learn, and I could not bring out a book that was not complete. Wrong-headed, I know, since I could always write a second book. Still, I simply could not get started, and that failing made me all the more terrified that you would sway the public to your way of thinking about the subject. 

“From that point on, I could not bear to look at the portrait. It reminded me of what I viewed as your perfidy. Obviously I still loved you, but I was so angry that I had it taken down and removed to Hurtfew. I directed that it be closed away in that small bedroom. I have to admit that when I returned here, I went to that room and arranged it so that I could once again sit and look at your image.” 

Mr Strange frowned in puzzlement. “But we had not yet reconciled, and you feared that I was about to appear and attack you in some fashion. Why would you wish to look at my image under those circumstances?” 

Mr Norrell thought for a moment. “Well, for one thing, it had been so long since I had seen it—more than a year and a half—and I did still love you. And remember, by that point I had had a chance to read your book, and I realized how wonderful it was. It was maddening in some ways, to be sure, but so much of it was extraordinary, and despite being jealous of your accomplishment, I was able to recognize a great deal of what I had taught you. Moreover, I had lost the favour of the public by destroying your book, so it no longer mattered so much that the public might admire you. I was still miserable looking at the portrait, but I was also desperate for the memory of how things were before … before that time when we sat, much as we are now, and had tea together and you left me.” 

Mr Strange put down his empty teacup and embraced Mr Norrell, kissing him on the cheek. 

They sat with their arms around each other for a while in silence. Finally Mr Strange said, “June of 1815. The Battle of Waterloo. Yes, I went straight to Shropshire to have some peace and quiet with Arabella, and I dove straight into writing the book. I was so obsessed with it that I am afraid I paid less attention to her than I should have. I have since wondered whether that neglect helped make her vulnerable to being kidnapped by the Fairy.” 

“If he was determined to spirit her away to Lost-hope, then surely he would have found a way, however attentive you might have been to her.” 

“Perhaps. You are kind to say so. Oh! and I remember that during this time you spent a few hours one day trying to spy upon me through your bowl. I remember being a little impertinent in letting your know that you would not learn anything about my book in that way.” 

“Yes, it was a most frustrating attempt. It seems so long ago now. I suppose the two years of our estrangement made me so wretched that the time seemed to drag past. Now that we are doing magic together again, it flies by.”

The two sat in thoughtful silence for a time.

"Looking back on it, that portrait, minor thing though it seemed at the time, helped drive us apart," Mr Strange remarked.

"Really? I cannot think how."

"Well, you may remember that we had some guests come to view the finished work. I was chatting with Sir Walter and remarked on the dark mirror that Mr Lawrence had chosen to place behind me. It somehow suggested to me a gateway into the magical realms that I longed to visit."

"I'm afraid I did not notice. Yet I do recall that afterward you asked me about mirrors and the King's Roads."

"Yes, and you kindly told me some intriguing things about them. As usual, even though you disapproved of entering Faerie, you knew the subject thoroughly."

"Oh, yes." Mr Norrell blushed. "I'm afraid it was not so much kindness as a desire to divert you from the subject of my Hurtfew library, which Mr Drawlight was praising to you so effusively on that same occasion. He was clearly deliberately flaunting the fact that he had been here and you had not. I considered that he might provoke you into anger because I had never invited you here."

"Hah! Ironical, given that you and I now sit here so happily together. At any rate, shortly thereafter I was playing billiards with some friends, including Sir Walter. I learned then that Drawlight had been profiting by pretending to represent me to wealthy people who might with to study with me or employ me to do magic."

"Wretched fool!" Mr Norrell interjected softly.

"Indeed. Suddenly Sir Walter urged me to go through a mirror in the billiards room, and I found myself upon the King's Roads. They fired my imagination enormously, and my determination to explore the magic of Faerie ultimately led me to decide to break with you."

Mr Norrell thought for a moment before replying, "Perhaps the mirror in the painting gave you the idea of exploring the King's Roads, but I could see that eventually you would probably be lured by your curiosity to attempt such a thing. Sooner or later something would have inspired you to do so, however much I tried to dissuade you. I really cannot blame the portrait for that unhappy period in our lives."

"No. In fact, shall we have it brought down here and installed over this mantle-piece, as it was at Hanover-square? It looked down upon the last happy days we had together, and now it will witness our new joy."

"I heartily concur. I had not thought of doing so, since now I have you yourself to gaze upon, but why not? As you say, we were still friends when it was painted, and it will stand as a reminder of that."

"Excellent! Tomorrow I shall ask Lucas and Davie to help me move it to its new and permanent place."


End file.
